Turbine engines, and particularly gas or combustion turbine engines, are rotary engines that extract energy from a flow of combusted gases passing into the engine through a series of compressor stages, a combustor, and a series of turbine stages where each compressor stage and turbine stage includes a multitude of rotating blades and stationary vanes. Turbine engines are commonly used for aeronautical applications such as propulsion of aircraft, and also for terrestrial applications such as power generation.
Turbine engines for aircraft utilize mainstream flow to drive the rotating turbine blades to generate thrust. The mainstream flow is propelled by combustion of gas to increase the thrust generated by the engine, the mainstream flow can create a bow wave in front of the turbine airfoils.
Turbine engines for aircraft are designed to operate at high temperatures to maximize engine efficiency. Temperatures in the high pressure turbine can be around 1000° -2000° C., and the spacing between each vane and blade in a stage can be constructed to prevent ingestion of the bow wave into regions that are sensitive to high temperatures.